Your Salesforce rollout doesn't stop the day you introduce the application to your users. To be successful with CRM, you have to instill the value of CRM into your company's culture. This section highlights some of the best practices to help drive user adoption.
   
Communicate the importance of the initiative
The number-one reason for failed CRM implementations is a lack of executive sponsorship. Senior leadership needs to regularly communicate the important role that Salesforce plays in the company's strategy and proactively manage to the application. This can be done during company meetings, via a monthly newsletter, or though one-on-one interventions with those resistant to change.  

Solicit user feedback
When educating users on the application, ask them what they'd like changed. Often times there are unused fields, cluttered page layouts, or terminology that doesn’t make sense. Whenever possible make changes on the fly in front of them to show them how responsive you can be with Salesforce.  

Communicate the value proposition for reps
Whether it's consolidating key sales collateral in the documents tab or importing leads directly from the website into Salesforce, find ways to make this a win-win for users and management. One of the biggest challenges is that reps view Salesforce for a tool for managers and loose sight of how it can make them more successful.   
Use dashboards to run your team meetings
When your team sees that you're managing to the application, usage tends to take a dramatic rise. Open up Salesforce in team meetings and highlight the dashboards which you track. When appropriate, drill down into the details and confirm that the information is accurate. If data is missing tell your reps that, “if it isn’t in Salesforce, it doesn’t exist.”   

Tie compensation to the application
There are a number of ways to tie compensation to Salesforce, the most popular of which is to only pay commissions on opportunities which were created in the application. You can also create spiffs which are directly tied to dashboards inside the application.

Leverage adoption dashboards
There are several adoption dashboards available on the AppExchange which you can install in a matter of minutes. These dashboards allow you to track login activity and new records added by user. Some customers have set up what they call “the wall of shame” to highlight outliers and enforce compliance. Adoption dashboards can also be used to improve data quality. For example, you can create a dashboard element which says who’s not filling out required fields.

Top Downloads

• Top 10 Tips for Greater Adoption
• Adoption Checklist
• Sticks and Carrots to Improve Adoption
• Neff Rental: Motivating Your Sales Team
• How to Drive Sponsorship at All Levels of Your Organization
• Successful Adoption Starts Now

To drive adoption and keep your implementation top of mind, you should plan on hosting regular training sessions with end-users and executives that reinforce processes and highlight key features. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started incorporating ongoing training into your corporate culture:

• Include Salesforce training in your new hire curriculum—create your own, or leverage our free on-demand training modules.
• Take 5 minutes at the beginning of every team meeting to highlight an important feature or introduce new functionality.
• Create quarterly “refresher” training for end-users to reinforce process changes. Check out our Sales, Marketing and Support process maps for additional resources.
• Include Salesforce.com’s end-user training, “Sales Rep Essentials” in your yearly training events. This 2.5 hour on-demand class will get your entire team on the same page and up to speed on the latest productivity-enhancing features.
• Hold an executive “Reports and Dashboards” seminar to help them learn to extract and interpret key metrics from Salesforce. Check out this Dreamforce presentation for an introduction to Dashboards and be sure to read the Reporting and Dashboards Blog for the latest developments.
• Create a periodic skills test for your reps. Topics could include lead qualification, objection handling or case resolution. You might consider role playing against fictional contacts and companies in Salesforce or using your Sandbox edition so reps can log calls and send emails, documenting their work. These exercises are also a great opportunity to reinforce useful features and open best practices discussions. You might also consider a small reward (e.g., gift certificate, Starbucks Cards) for participation and top performers.

If you want to make the investment in training but don’t have time, salesforce.com’s education team offers a wide variety of training options.

• All Salesforce Administrators and any heavy users or “power” users should be trained on the application. Our most popular class, Administrator Essentials, will cover all the basics of configuring the Sales, Marketing and Support modules so you can get started right with best practices from the experts. You’ll gain context for how each application works together, and reassurance that the customizations you make can adapt as your business changes.
• New Feature Workshops: Salesforce.com is constantly introducing new applications, improving existing products and evolving the force.com platform. You’ll want to sign up for a New Feature workshop to keep up with the latest developments, implement key features and train end-uses on the newest improvements.
• Custom Training: For larger implementations or more complex rollouts, Salesforce.com will bring the classroom to you. We offer custom curriculum development, train-the-trainer sessions and periodic refreshers, all tailored to the way you operate your business.

Finally, you should leverage the free on-line training courses listed below. These will help prepare you for additional training, will assist end-users in getting started and keep skills fresh.

• Salesforce Fundamentals (ADM 100)
• Sales Representative Training (SFA 101)
• Customer Support Training
• Reporting Fundamentals (ADM 120)
• Synchronization Fundamentals - Outlook 2.0 (ADM 140)

If you want to send a link to a particular segment of the training, here's a simple little trick you can use. By adding ?slide=# to the end of the URL as seen below, the user will start with that particular slide. http://salesforce.breezecentral.com/p60375660/?slide=4

Downloads

• Designing a Training Program (Word Document)

In order for a CRM implementation to be successful, you’ve got to be able trust the data. Here are some rules for maintaining data quality.

Standardized Naming Conventions
Before you implement Salesforce it’s a good idea to come up with standardized naming conventions for company names and addresses. For example is it U.S.A., USA, or US? Is it Acme or Acme LLC? Here is presentation which lists best practices for standardizing naming conventions .

Divisions and Subsidiaries
When working with large enterprises there is often a web of divisions and subsidiaries which can be difficult to navigate and often results in duplicate accounts. If this is a challenge your organization faces, you might consider Hoovers, Dow Jones SalesWorks, and TrueAdvantage.  This will help you pull in accurate information based and map out complex corporate families.
    
Duplicate Leads and Contacts
Duplicates can come from any number of sources including your website, lists, or they might even be manually entered by reps. There are several Salesforce Partners who do an excellent job of tackling this problem, among them are Ringlead, DemandTools and Trillium Diamond Data all of them have received rave reviews amongst customers. It’s also important that you train your reps on how best to search for duplicates. While this is different for every business, it’s often effective to search against the tail end of the email address, for example acme.com. This will catch both the contact you were looking for as well as other contacts at that same company. 

Data Quality Dashboards
With Salesforce you can set up what is called a data quality dashboard to highlight when fields are left blank. For example you might have a dashboard that indicates the number of times main competitor was left blank. You might also track overdue tasks or last time the record was updated.

Free AppExchange Apps
There are a bunch of free tools on the AppExchange which can be used to improve data quality. The most widely used is probably Ron Hess’s Excel Connector. This enables you to extract data from Salesforce using Exel, perform updates and push it back. Ron has also built a number of simple components for performing bulk tasks like mass update opportunity dates or mass update contacts addresses. 

Downloads

• Data Management: Getting It In, Getting It Out, Keeping it Clean  (Breeze Presentation)
• Improving Data Quality: Best Practices for Keeping Data Clean and Relevant  (Breeze Presentation)

In business change is constant. Management shifts, new processes are implemented, territories are realigned, and new technology is introduced. To keep up with these changes it’s important that you have a process in place to adapt Salesforce to your evolving needs. 

As the Salesforce.com administrator you’ll want to identify, prioritize, assign, execute, and close the loop on change management requests.

Identification can happen in both a proactive and reactive mode. A good administrator will stay current on the application by reading the release notes and participating in the online community so they are aware of features and best practices that might be relevant to their implementation. They’ll also gather feedback direct from their constituents to better understand the business and the challenges users face. For larger salesforce.com implementation an administrator will also want to find ways to manage the steady flow of inbound requests. One technique is to create a web-to-case form and add a custom link to the homepage or add it to your intranet. This way so that users know exactly how to make their request known.  

With a steady stream of ideas and requests, the next step is to set up a change management committee which will meet weekly or monthly to prioritize, assign, and execute the changes. Change requests can come in all different forms. Here are a couple of examples.

• Implement a new feature
• Add a custom field or change a page layout
• Adjust a workflow rule
• Create a new custom object
• Install an AppExchange App
• Modify a report or dashboard
• Access to the API for integration purposes 

For each request the change management committee will want to consider the business impact and what can be done to minimize the disruption of business activities. Once the change has been approved, you’ll want to assign and execute it. For minor changes such as adding a field, you can usually do it right away. For changes requiring training, it’s best to do those on a monthly or quarterly basis. Before the change goes out it’s a good idea to close the loop either via email or during a team meeting if you anticipate questions.

With a formalized change management process in place, you’ll be able to expand into continuously improve your salesforce.com implementation.

Downloads

• Successfully Managing New Releases of Salesforce (Breeze Presentation)
• How to Roll Out New Features and Energize Your Existing Implementation (Breeze Presentation) 
• Managing SOX Compliance (Breeze Presentation)

It’s easy to look at salesforce.com as a technology solution, but success also hinges on people and processes.  

• What does the executive team and your managers hope to get out of Salesforce?
• What are the goals of your end users?
• How do the corporate goals align with the business unit goals?
• Are there pre-defined metrics to track attainment of goals?
• How closely do the process and application map to the agreed upon goals?

To answer these questions it’s best that you step away from the computer, grab a white board, and talk it out. If you need a starting point, print out the Business Process Review Worksheet or the Sales Process Map, both of which are available on Successforce.com. The goal is to end with a document or set of documents which aligns the team and sets standardized processes. These documents will be instrumental for training new users and should be kept in the document library so that they can be referenced and updated as needed.

Downloads

• Sales Process Map (PowerPoint File)
• Service and Support Process Map (PowerPoint File)
• Implementation Process Map (PowerPoint File)
• Busness Process Review Worksheet  (Word Document)

Blogs
If you want to connect with a product expert in a given field, blogs allow you to plug into the salesforce.com community so that you can stay on top of the latest best practice ideas. Here are a couple of examples of bloggers you might follow.  

• CRM Strategy: Wendy Close
• Adoption Best Practices: Jamie Grenney
• Custom Formula Fields: Eric Bezar
• Partner Relationship Management: Elay Cohen
• AppExchange Development: Adam Gross 

Once you find someone you’re interested in reading, you can sign up for email alerts or subscribe to the RSS feed and add the latest updates to your personalized page.

Message Boards
The message boards are a place where customers post questions and start threaded discussions with one another. Below are some sample questions you might post. 

• Does anyone know how to do dependent picklists?
• I’m having trouble with the excel plug-in, does anyone know how to do bulk updates?
• Anyone here from Philly? Do you know about the local user group?

On the message boards customers find they can get straight answers quickly and often they get multiple points of view. Even if you don’t have a question, browse around to see what the community is talking about. www.successforce.com/community 

Best Practice Workshops
Salesforce.com Customer Success Managers conduct free daily best practice workshops. Each day they focus on addressing the needs of a specific area including sales, marketing, support, and general administration. Workshops run about an hour and start at 11:00 PST.

Local User Groups
Salesforce.com customers organize local user group events to meet and discuss everything about Salesforce, such as reviewing new functionality, discussing best practices, or developing a wish list of new features.

Connect-on-Demand
Salesforce recently introduced a social networking application where you can connect with other event attendees who match your business or networking requirements. This allows you to arrange meeting with people in advance of our local user group meetings.

Dreamforce
Dreamforce is salesforce.com's annual user and developer conference. Dreamforce offers a unique opportunity to connect with the salesforce.com community, hear the latest developments in the on-demand space, join in on educational sessions, learn about our innovative partners, and attend fabulous networking parties and events. Dreamforce sessions are organized into several tracks based on role. Each track features detailed breakout sessions in a variety of formats and levels, giving you a chance to meet with salesforce.com product teams, hear from expert administrators and users from our customer population, and pick up strategies for handling your most critical business issues.

Your Account Executive is your main point of contact at salesforce.com and can assist you with billing, account maintenance and additional feature questions. You also have access to our Customer Success Manager (CSM) team to provide recommendations on how to implement best practices across your organization and drive user adoption.

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